Posted on 03/20/2002 10:01:16 PM PST by GeronL
Hell NO! American gun owners are!!!!!!!!!!
More to the point, the Constitution was written to be a guide by which ordinary educated citizens could judge whether the actions of government officials were legitimate. The citizens could thus either help the officials act against lawbreakers, or help protect the so-called lawbreakers against lawless officials.
Too bad so many people have worked for so long to obscure the straightforward meaning of much of the document.
Some seem to think that if the Court throws out the First Amendment that their action is Constitutional. Stupid.
Congress also has the power to take issues out of the purview of the courts, like abortion.
The courts are the final arbiter on whether laws passed by the Legislative branch and enforced by the Executive branch are Constitutional. Sheesh.
Then what?
What judiciary is Constitutional? By the stroke of a pen, all courts except the Supreme Court can lose their jurisdiction and thereby be abolished. Question is, would that make matters better or worse?
Do appellate or circuit courts have jurisdiction to interpret the Constitution? If not, then why do their decisions amount to so much legislation? It is my understanding, that each case that these courts decide is based on the merits of each case that they hear.
ONLY the Supreme Court has any jurisdiction and only with regard and respect to issues of Constitutionality. Even so, the highest court of this last best best place to live on this planet, has no business legislating through its decisions.
At that point the Supreme Courts only authority is to decline to enforce an unconstitutional law. Through precedent inferior courts also no longer enforce laws that the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional.
There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the legislature from passing a new law and the President from signing and enforcing it. There is no provision that would prevent the executive branch from enforcing a law that has been ruled unconstitutional and forcing everyone into the time and expense of court or to simply submit.
That is why all three branches must take responsibility for determining and only approving laws that are in compliance with the Constitution. No where does the Constitution state that the Supreme Court has final authority. The President, Senators and Congressmen all take an oath to uphold the Constitution, that oath requires that they determine weather a bill or any provision in the bill is constitutional before passing it into law.
You phrased your make-believe scenario backwards. The court cannot claim that gun ownership or media outlets are unconstitutional. All they can do is judge laws against the supreme law of the land, so a law would have to be written which claims "All people shall be obligated to turn in all weapons by April 15th" or "All private media outlets will be shut down effective immediately" or whatever. Then someone brings the case to court. If they lose, they appeal. They can appeal all the way to the SC. If they lose at the SC, "then what?" you ask. Then if people want the law reversed they elect those who will represent their interests in the matter and change the law, or the Constitution, or the ideology of the court. It's truly the worst form of governance, except for all the others.
Its Robert Borks' look at what the courts did with the Florida recount. It says a lot, namely that the Florida courts and the Supreme Court had no real business deciding what should have been decided by Florida law before the election.
The majority opinion raises a further question: whether a desirable result can ever be an adequate reason for law-bending. That seems to depend on ones political sympathy. The question lay at the heart of the courts ruling in United States v. Nixon requiring the president to comply with the special prosecutors subpoena of White House tapes. Strictly speaking, the case was not justiciable, for it involved a dispute between the head of the executive branch and a subordinate officer
It should never have been taken up by the courts, in other words
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